1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to methods and systems for asynchronously testing and carrying out testing procedures on disk drives, and more particularly, to providing asynchronous automatic software module updates in a multi-cell disk drive test system used to test disk drives.
2. Description of the Prior Art and Related Information
FIG. 1 shows the principal components of a magnetic disk drive 100 that may be tested in a multi-cell disk drive testing system. With reference to FIG. 1, the disk drive 100 comprises a head disk assembly (HDA) 144 and a printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) 114. The HDA 144 includes a disk drive enclosure comprising base 116 and a cover 117 attached to the base 116 that collectively house a disk stack 123 that includes one or a plurality of magnetic disks (of which only a first disk 111 and a second disk 112 are shown), a spindle motor 113 attached to the base 116 for rotating the disk stack 123, an HSA 120, and a pivot bearing cartridge 184 that rotatably supports the head stack assembly (HSA) 120 on the base 116. The spindle motor 113 rotates the disk stack 123 at a constant angular velocity.
The HSA 120 comprises a swing-type or rotary actuator assembly 130, at least one head gimbal assembly (HGA) 110, and a flex circuit cable assembly 180. The rotary actuator assembly 130 includes a body portion 140, at least one actuator arm 160 cantilevered from the body portion 140, and a coil portion 150 cantilevered from the body portion 140 in an opposite direction from the actuator arm 160. The actuator arm 160 supports the HGA 110 that, in turn, supports the slider(s). The flex cable assembly 180 may include a flex circuit cable and a flex clamp 159.
The HSA 120 is pivotally secured to the base 116 via the pivot-bearing cartridge 184 so that the slider at the distal end of the HGA 110 may be moved over the surfaces of the disks 111, 112. The pivot-bearing cartridge 184 enables the HSA 120 to pivot about a pivot axis, shown in FIG. 1 at reference numeral 182. The storage capacity of the HDA 144 may be increased by, for example, increasing the track density (the TPI) on the disks 111, 112 and/or by including additional disks in the disk stack 123 and by an HSA 120 having a vertical stack of HGAs 110 supported by multiple actuator arms 160.
The “rotary” or “swing-type” actuator assembly comprises a body portion 140 that rotates on the pivot bearing 184 cartridge between limited positions, a coil portion 150 that extends from one side of the body portion 140 to interact with one or more permanent magnets 192 mounted to back irons 170, 172 to form the voice coil motor (VCM), and the actuator arm 160 that supports the HGA 110. The VCM causes the HSA 120 to pivot about the actuator pivot axis 182 to cause the slider and the read write transducers thereof to sweep radially over the disk(s) 111, 112.
After the HDA 144 and the PCBA 114 are mated, the disk drive must undergo a variety of tests and procedures to configure and validate the proper operation of the disk drive. Such testing conventionally is carried out in a “single plug tester”, which is a test platform that includes a bank of cells into which the disk drives are manually loaded and unloaded. A sequential series of tests and procedures are then carried out on the loaded disk drives. Some of the test and procedures are subject to strict environmental control requirements. Conventionally, the drives remain in the same cell during the administration of the entire sequence of tests, and are removed in batch only at the conclusion of the sequence of tests.
It may be appreciated, however, that such a test platform architecture may lead to inefficiencies. Some of these inefficiencies are organic to the structure of the test platform and to its batch mode of operation, while other inefficiencies stem from various evolutionary changes in the disk drives themselves. At the outset, the batch mode of operation of single plug testers limit the platform's throughput to the time required for the slowest drive to complete the prescribed sequential series of tests. Drives that may complete the sequential series faster than others (for whatever reason) or fail any test must sit idle and occupy a cell that would otherwise be available for the administration of tests to another disk drive.
Some evolutionary changes of the disk drives themselves that affect the operation of conventional test platforms include the ongoing transition from drives having a parallel interface (e.g., EIDE drives) to drives having a serial interface (such as Serial Advanced Technology Architecture or SATA). However, even during this transition to serial drives, there remains a non-negligible demand for drives having a parallel interface. Therefore, from a manufacturing point of view, both parallel and serial drives should continue to be manufactured, at least during this period of transition.
Adding to the complexity of the testing of disk drives, is that each cell may be configured to run a different test procedure that may be based upon one of various downloaded software modules for multiple classes of disk drives. The introduction of a new software module updates for a new test procedure or modified versions of existing ones presently introduces a very complex task in that the entire multi-cell disk drive test system has to be taken off-line while updated software modules to implement various test procedures for various classes of disk drives are loaded into the system.
This results in a great deal of down-time for the multi-cell disk drive test system and consequently a large inefficiency in the disk drive testing process. A great deal of cost is added to the disk drive manufacturing process due to this inefficiency. Because disk drive testers represent such large capital expenditures for disk drive manufacturers, more efficient testers and testing procedures are continuously sought after in order to reduce inefficiencies and costs and to increase throughput.